


chasing the high (but it was always you)

by thelimitsofthe_sea



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29628399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelimitsofthe_sea/pseuds/thelimitsofthe_sea
Summary: They always say that time heals, but these past few months Zayn had been on his mind more than ever.
Relationships: Zayn Malik/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	chasing the high (but it was always you)

**Author's Note:**

> hey! so in this universe, zayn and louis don't have kids and gigi and zayn stayed broken up. the song lyrics are all from various songs of louis': always you, defenceless, too young, don't let it break your heart, & two of us. hope you enjoy the fic!

Louis shut his laptop, satisfied with the work he’d gotten done that night. He was working on some tracks he’d recorded last month, layering the vocals with some instrumentals that his producers had sent him. He’d been really bummed out about having to postpone his tour, but after he got over the disappointment he’d been managing to use his lockdown time pretty productively. He had a bunch of ideas for the next record, and he wanted to make something really special for his fans. Louis had been super proud of Walls—sure, not all the reviews had been raving, but the fans liked it and he’d actually managed to say what he felt and just put it out there. It had taken him quite a few years into his solo career to get out his first album, but it had all come together when the time was right. Once Louis had taken the chip off his shoulder about trying to be as successful as the band had been, or trying to prove that he wasn’t past his peak, suddenly all the music had come so much easier. So what if he was past his peak? He enjoyed making music and he was going to keep doing it, it was as simple as that.

_drink after drink but i still felt alone/ i should've known_

Louis poured himself a whiskey and sank down onto the couch, suddenly feeling very small in the silence of the big empty house. He kept busy during the days, but at night he struggled to chase away the thoughts of wanting a shoulder to rest his head on when the day was done. A very tattooed shoulder, attached to a warm neck he fit perfectly into. He sighed and took more of a swig than a sip out of his glass, relishing the sweet burn. Talking about being past the peak, his love life certainly was. _Stop it_ , he told himself sharply. He wasn’t really sitting here again, drinking by himself, playing back memories from over five years ago But that was exactly what he was doing as scenes ran his mind of rushing backstage and falling into Zayn’s arms after the show, still high on the adrenaline of performing and ready to get higher on him. Or the days where they did nothing at all the whole day but lie in bed, playing videos and getting high and definitely getting off. They always say that time heals, but these past few months Zayn had been on his mind more than ever (not that he was ever far from his thoughts, if he was going to be honest). Thoughts of them together would flood over him when he least expected it, and he would even remember moments he had forgotten, that must’ve been stored away in some stubborn corner of his heart. It was all as clear as if it had been yesterday, but with the sharp pain of realizing it had been years since any of this had been anything more than memory. Time, it turned out, was a shit doctor.

_you just keep on building your fences/ but i’ve never been so defenceless_

He didn’t know if it was the loneliness of months of lockdown, or if he was getting sentimental in his old age—he’d be thirty this year, bloody hell—but these nights of of slow but sweet torture, when he could do anything but get Zayn out of his head, were becoming more and more frequent. He would never admit it to a soul, but more than half of the songs on his Top 25 Most Played were Zayn’s. _This is just pathetic, mate_ , he told himself sternly, fully aware of his sorry state but equally unable to pull himself out of it. He’d done everything you were supposed to do to move on—took time for himself, dated men, dated women—but the ache of absence in his gut was a feeling he had never truly been able to get rid of. Since their rather public falling out, Louis had barely even heard from Zayn, except for two sympathy cards sent after his mum passed and then a few years later for Fizzy. Louis had torn them both up and thrown them out. He never realized careful politeness could feel like a smack in the face— they had said plenty of intentionally cruel things to each other, but this was worse than all of them put together. It would’ve been better if Zayn’s response had just been more radio silence. The fact that Zayn had become a stranger who just sent a sympathy card instead of the person who used to hold Louis and calm him down through anything he was going through was a bitter dose of finality. He realized that he was on his own, that he could go through the most devastating and painful experiences he could possibly imagine and Zayn still wouldn’t be there.

_we were too young to know we had everything/ too young, i wish i could’ve seen it all along_

How had it gotten to this point? They had been inseparable for years, and now it literally took a death in the family for there to be any communication between them. They’d bonded quickly at the beginning of the band. They had similar senses of humour, were from big families full of sisters, liked to roll one and have a good time but were also introverted beneath the exterior. Soon enough, they found they had more in common than they’d thought, when Zayn kissed him one night in a hotel room after a night out after the other boys had gone to bed, his lips tasting like smoke and heat and bad beer and oh yes finally. They kept it to themselves for a while, tried it on for size and tested it out, and when they were pretty sure that yes, this was going to be a thing, they told the boys. Louis had been nervous, but there was nothing but love and some good natured ribbing. _I had kind of figured_ , Harry had said knowingly, while Niall just grinned and gave them a thumbs up. _So I guess you’ve really been making some midnight memories_ , Liam said, and they all groaned, because it was the most Liam thing to say. Louis wasn’t surprised he was the first of them to have a kid, because Liam had always been ready with the bad dad jokes.

_life gets hard and it gets messed up/ when you give so much but it’s not enough_

But things had gotten more complicated as the years went on. They both struggled with coping with it all, and Louis knew that they were drinking too much and smoking too much together, and trying to use sex to make it all better, with even that seeming too work a little less each time. Louis had noticed Zayn getting thinner and more drawn into himself, and he’d wanted to help, but somehow acknowledging fully that something was deeply wrong felt impossible. Then he’d have to face what was hurting in himself as well. He had just wanted to keep on going on like the old days, to act as though everything was as new and shiny and promising as it had been when they had first started out. Eventually it started feeling like they couldn’t help each other at all, could barely even talk about what was actually going on. When you’re trying to pull yourself up and you grab on to someone who’s also sinking, you’re both just going to drown. But they’d also needed each other so badly. Or Louis had, at least. Letting go felt almost as impossible as carrying on like that did.

_when the high’s too high and the low’s too low/ when you love someone and they let you go_

Maybe that’s why he’d felt so angry when Zayn had left. All of the boys had felt hurt and disappointed, of course, but Louis had been furious, with a white-hot rage that scared him in its intensity. He’d worked so hard to keep going, to keep on pretending everything was alright in the hope that it would be one day, and just like that Zayn was walking away. Walking away from the band. Walking away from everything they had built together. Walking away from him. It had ended with a tense phone call, where Zayn had told him this was something he had to do for himself and Louis told him _oh yeah of course, for yourself, it’s always about you, innit?_ and then Zayn accusing him of not even trying to understand and finally the sharp staccato of silence, with Louis not even able to remember who had hung up first. Not that it mattered. Neither of them were ever very good at backing down, and after more stony silence only broken by angry words exchanged on Twitter, it seemed the nail was in their coffin for good. Louis had kept his head high and his eyes forward, proud and stubborn and unapologetic, but inside he was lost and confused and so fucking lonely. _It’s because you’re both Capricorns_ , Harry had said ruefully over a mug of tea, as if that was a string of words that was supposed to have some kind of meaning to him. Niall and Liam had taken him out for a pint, and awkwardly checked in with him every now and then to see if he was okay, but while they were good lads they were lads, and he couldn’t really get into it with them. His mum was the only person he’d really been able to talk about everything and anything with, and now she was gone.

_i’ve been looking back a lot lately/ me and you is all i’ve ever known/ it’s hard to think you could ever hate me_

Louis sighed and drained his glass. Looking back, now that years had come and gone, he wished he had at least tried to see things Zayn’s way. Louis was loyal to a fault, and he had just been completely unable to understand leaving the band. But where had been his loyalty to Zayn? The person he swore he loved most in the world, and he had been unable to give him any grace. But maybe it was because he loved him so much that it felt so unforgivable. A betrayal not just of the band, but of Louis. Yeah, Zayn had been selfish. But he had also been in so much pain, and he had been so desperate to find some way out of it, some escape for the hurt. Louis knew plenty about running from pain, and feeling like no matter what you did you could never run fast enough. He had been so determined to take the band’s side, but now he saw that he had never even taken a breath to consider Zayn’s side. Wasn’t love a promise to stand by someone, to not yank your hand away and leave them standing there? Once he swallowed his anger and pride, he was left with a sense of failure that went down to his bones, and a stinging regret for all the things said and done in hurt instead of love.

_it’s been a minute since i’ve called you/ just to hear the answerphone_

He wondered where Zayn was tonight. He didn’t even know what country he was in. He wondered if someone was holding him. He’d been ~~ecstatic~~ very saddened to hear about Zayn’s split with Gigi. Since then, he hadn’t seen anything in the press about him dating someone else, but of course, that didn’t mean much. Louis and Zayn had always managed to keep themselves out of the press. There was nothing tangible out there to even say they had existed, nothing except the thousands of memories keeping him up at night. His head swimming slightly from the whiskey Louis pulled his phone out of his pocket, his thumb hovering over the call button. _No, we are not doing this again_ , he said to himself, but how many times had he said that? His fingers typed out the number that he had enough self-respect not to save as a contact, the number that he had used to call Zayn on, that was special, just for him, so he could always reach him at any time. Zayn had disconnected it years ago, and Louis knew he would just get an automated message telling him just that from a cool robotic voice. That somehow never stopped him from calling. He typed slowly, trying to talk himself out of it. What if someone else had that number now, and he ended up fulfilling someone’s fanfiction-fuelled dreams of Louis Tomlinson drunk dialling them? Or if he connected with some confused granny in Suffolk who had no idea who he was? His rational mind’s entreaties were useless, they always were. Louis held the phone to his ear, waiting for the small sting of disappointment that would come with the computerized answer. The seconds passed, the ringing continued, and Louis was about to hang up before the message began and then—

“...Louis?” The voice was achingly, beautifully, painfully familiar. _It’s finally you. It was always you._


End file.
